Skip to content


All admission results are in

So today Columbia emailed me the decision, and with that all schools I have applied to have officially replied. If you want to know the results, you can check it out at http://grad2010.jamesyxu.com/

Retrospectively speaking, the results arent bad at all:

  • Apparently international undergrads going directly to PhD rarely gets any funding. It’s understandable really, no one wants to waste hard earned funding on someone they have never met before. I had original hoped for funding, but given the schools I applied to it might have been a little wishful thinking… just a little…
  • All the schools I applied to are top tier schools. My goal is not to relocate myself to America, but rather to do research and get the experience of being in a top school. 3 out of 16 isn’t too bad. Most places have acceptance rate below 6%, and IMHO a lot of the decision comes down to the committee’s experience, interest etc rather than the applicant’s merits.  Many factors such as having a professor needing someone to work on a project that an applicant has direct experience in are very random, so there is a big ‘chance’ factor in play.
  • I think some schools in that list was a waste of spot. Could have saved a few $$s by not applying to schools like MIT and Berkeley. Not only is the chance infinitesimallylow, there will be so many best of the best there that there is less chance for me (or anyone else short of being a complete genius) to shine 😀

UCLA is a very good choice for me, the weather is very close to Auckland, and there are many opportunities in California in the areas of electronics.

Posted in Grad school. Tagged with , .